Chapter 749: Oh, someone is ambushing Accelerator? Four Espers gather!
Accelerator certainly wasn't here for a stroll.
His words fell into the empty silence. There seemed to be no response.
He irritably ruffled his hair, a ferocious grin spreading across his lips.
"Hey, if you don't come out, I'll turn this whole place into ruins!"
This wasn't just a verbal threat; he would really do it. His threat was also effective.
From behind the container, a girl wearing tactical goggles and holding a gun emerged. She had a physique extremely similar to Misaka Mikoto. She was a clone of Misaka Mikoto.
"Tsk."
Upon seeing her appear, Accelerator clicked his tongue in displeasure.
"I thought you'd keep hiding, that way I could bury you along with this whole area."
"This is not included in the mission objective, Misaka 9982 said."
Misaka 9982 spoke.
Accelerator's gaze also became calm.
"So today's objective is to kill you. Is there any interesting way to do it this time?"
He was getting tired of it.
To become stronger. He participated in an experiment called the Level 6 Shift Project.
The tasks were boring and repetitive. It was just repeatedly killing weak, cheap, artificial things, like the one in front of him, from indoors to outdoors.
Misaka 9982 was expressionless.
"Experiment start requested, does target agree?"
"…"
It was the same repetitive question.
Accelerator felt annoyed; this wasn't the kind of question he wanted.
"Forget it, you're just a doll, I'll slaughter you."
He stomped his right foot on the ground.
BOOM!
A tremor shook the ground. The earth cracked.
Huge chunks of rock, like waves, surged towards Misaka 9982. She couldn't even dodge.
CRASH!
The container, along with her figure, was smashed to pieces.
Accelerator glanced at it, then uninterestingly withdrew his gaze.
"Tch, what a fragile toy."
He turned to leave, already thinking about buying a can of coffee.
Just then.
"You… what do you take life for!!!"
A scream filled with raw, unadulterated fury tore through the night sky, vibrating with a tangible pressure that made the air itself feel heavy.
KA-BOOM!
The sky roared in anger. It wasn't natural thunder; it was a sudden, violent atmospheric discharge triggered by a massive surge of AIM diffusion fields.
Accelerator stopped mid-step and looked up, his red eyes narrowing as he sensed the anomaly. The electrons in the atmosphere were gathering at a terrifying rate, swirling into a vortex of pure energy directly above him.
He only saw a dazzling bolt of lightning strike down on him. Zzzzzzzzt!!!
A blinding light erupted in the dead of night, illuminating the entire container yard with the brilliance of a midday sun. The flash was so intense it bleached the color from the world for a split second, leaving only stark whites and deep shadows.
When the light faded, the smell of ozone was overpowering, thick and stinging in the nostrils.
In the center of the scorched asphalt, Misaka Mikoto stood. Her short brown hair defied gravity, dancing with static electricity. Blue-white arcs of high voltage jumped frantically between her bangs, crackling with the sound of a thousand snapping whips. Her face was twisted into a mask of pure hatred, her eyes glowing with the power of a Level 5 Esper.
"You're making too much of a fuss, aren't you?"
Misaki Shokuhou, who was supporting the unconscious body of Misaka 9982 in the distance, complained speechlessly. She brushed dust off her uniform, her starry eyes wide with a mix of relief and annoyance at the destructiveness of the "Ace."
"…"
Misaka Mikoto was silent. She didn't respond to Shokuhou's complaint. Her focus was absolute.
She was just venting her anger. That person—that white-haired demon—had tried to kill a Sister without even batting an eye. He didn't see a human being; he saw a prop. He crushed her like she was an insect, with the same casual indifference one would use to discard a used tissue.
If they hadn't arrived a second earlier, she… would have died!
9982 would have been nothing more than a smear of biological paste on the rusted metal of a shipping container. The thought sent a jolt of nausea through Mikoto's stomach, quickly replaced by a burning inferno of rage.
Such a callous disregard for life completely enraged Misaka Mikoto. The iron sand in the ground around her began to vibrate, rising into the air like a black mist, responding to her magnetic fury.
"Onee-sama…?"
Misaka 9982 tilted her head, her expression puzzled as she looked at the original. Even though she was injured, her primary concern seemed to be a logical discrepancy rather than her own safety.
"According to the experiment protocol, Onee-sama should not be here, Misaka said."
"If I hadn't come here, you would have died!!!"
Misaka Mikoto's expression was indignant, her voice cracking with emotion. "Don't you understand?! He was going to kill you!"
"It's fine, a Misaka Sister is just a consumable that can be manufactured for 180,000 yen, Misaka explained clearly."
"…"
Misaka Mikoto was stunned. Her breath hitched.
She didn't understand why even she—her own clone, sharing her DNA, her face, her voice—considered herself just a consumable. Just a product with a price tag attached to her life. 180,000 yen? Is that all a soul is worth in this city?
It was all that damned Level 6 Shift Project! That nightmare of science that treated life as a variable in an equation.
Misaka Mikoto clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood. She had never felt such a strong desire to kill someone before. The electromagnetic waves radiating from her body spiked, causing nearby streetlights to explode in a shower of sparks.
Misaki Shokuhou felt a bad premonition. Her "Mental Out" ability allowed her to sense the minds of those around her, and the mind of the white-haired boy was... abyssal.
She quickly urged, "It's not good to stay here, we need to leave quickly!"
"Leave? Hahahaha, you actually want to leave!"
A chilling, scratchy voice echoed from the dust cloud.
Accelerator was neither dead nor incapacitated.
He emerged from the crater, completely unharmed. The dust settled around him, revealing his slouching figure. The lightning—a strike powerful enough to vaporize a tank—had been redirected around his body, grounding harmlessly into the earth. Not a single thread of his clothes was singed. His reflection barrier was absolute.
He looked at the three girls with a ferocious expression, his red eyes glowing in the dark like the embers of hell.
"Since you've attacked me, then die!!!"
He activated his ability—Vector Manipulation.
He didn't need to touch them directly. He simply tapped his foot on the ground.
CRACK-BOOM!
As he stepped, the ground cracked. The kinetic energy of his step was amplified and redirected. The concrete foundation beneath the asphalt shattered, and heavy steel pipes buried within the ground shot out like spears.
They flew at supersonic speeds, turning the air into a vacuum tunnel as they aimed directly for Misaka Mikoto's heart.
Misaka Mikoto finally couldn't contain her rage. Her bangs sparked violently.
"You, the criminal who harms life, are the one who should pay the price!"
Zzzzt!
She didn't dodge. She raised her hand, palm facing the incoming projectiles.
A massive surge of magnetism erupted from her body. The lightning in her hand linked the steel pipes with electromagnetic force, seizing control of the ferrous metal.
SCREECH!
The pipes stopped in mid-air, inches from her face, vibrating violently as the kinetic vector fought against the magnetic clamp. With a scream of exertion, Mikoto reversed their polarity.
"Return to sender!"
She flung them back with greater force, adding her own railgun-like acceleration to the projectiles. The pipes turned into blurring streaks of silver death, rocketing back toward the Number One.
Accelerator was just about to act. He raised a hand lazily to reflect the attack.
VWOOM!
Suddenly, a third force entered the fray.
A blinding green laser beam shot from the side towards Accelerator's position. It hissed through the air, melting the falling raindrops into steam instantly.
It was a high-density electron beam, capable of melting through tank armor like butter.
However, it was reflected away the moment it touched his skin. The "Redirection" was automatic. The beam didn't even warm his skin; it simply bounced off at a sharp angle.
BOOM!
The reflected laser hit a container stack behind him, causing a huge explosion. Molten steel sprayed outward, glowing orange in the night.
"Are there still some blind bugs around?"
Accelerator sidestepped to dodge the steel pipe that Mikoto had thrown—which embedded itself deep into the concrete wall behind him—and looked to the side, annoyed.
Mugino Shizuri and her ITEM group were standing there.
Kinuhata Saiai's eyes widened behind her hood. She stared at the spot where the beam had connected.
"That is super impossible! Mugino's Meltdowner was completely ineffective against that sickly-looking guy?!"
Frenda Seivelun was also shocked. She clutched her explosives, her usual bravado faltering. "Yeah, if that hit me, I'd be dead! He treated it like a flashlight beam!"
Mugino Shizuri's ability was called "Meltdowner."
She could freely unleash cannon fire that would pierce through both cover and the opponent's body. It was an ability that released electrons by continuously maintaining them in a pure electron state, without allowing them to become particles or waveforms. It was raw, destructive power held in a precarious state of suspension.
Meltdowner's correct classification was "Particle-Wave High-Speed Cannon."
Although it was also an electron control ability like Railgun. She was an Esper who manipulated electrons, not using waveforms and particles, but pure destructive energy.
In essence, it shared a similar principle with Misaka Mikoto's Electromaster ability, which controlled electromagnetism. But where Mikoto was versatile, Mugino was pure destruction.
However, Mugino Shizuri's Meltdowner had the characteristic of being very powerful in scale but very difficult to control. It was a sledgehammer compared to Mikoto's scalpel.
This was why her destructive power was technically above Misaka Mikoto's, but its practicality was very low, which is why she was ranked fourth.
Compared to the shock of Kinuhata Saiai and Frenda.
Takitsubo Rikou, who had been drowsy and leaning against a crate, became unusually serious. She lifted her head, her eyes focusing intently on the battlefield, looking past the physical forms and into the energy signatures.
Her gaze was heavy as she stared at Misaka Mikoto, Accelerator, and Misaki Shokuhou.
To her eyes, the world was a different place. She didn't see people; she saw their AIM Diffusion Fields—the involuntary energy fields emitted by Espers.
And what she saw now terrified her.
The fields of these three were not like the others. They were massive, suffocating storms of energy that distorted the very air around them. Accelerator's field was a black hole of vector calculations. Mikoto's was a raging thunderstorm. Shokuhou's was a complex, labyrinthine web.
She said with difficulty, her voice trembling: "Mugino, they're not right, they're very strong!"
Her ability was Level 4 "AIM Stalker."
She possessed the property of sensing others' AIM Diffusion Fields.
According to her, the AIM fields of the three were not right. They were in a completely different league from anyone ITEM had ever faced before.
Mugino Shizuri frowned: "What do you mean?"
Takitsubo Rikou answered seriously, sweat beading on her forehead as she struggled to quantify the data: "The AIM field of any one of them is no weaker than yours, Mugino. In fact... they might be denser."
"!!!"
All the ITEM members, including Mugino Shizuri, were stunned.
No weaker than her? That meant they were facing the pinnacle of Academy City's power hierarchy.
Her expression also became grave: "You… are also Level 5s?!"
Also?!
At this moment, Misaki Shokuhou realized something was wrong.
She silently opened the Chat Group.
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